


freedom is being alone (I fear liberation)

by scepticallyopenminded



Series: 30 Day Lyrics Challenge - 2017 [8]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M, First Kiss, First Love, Happy Ending, M/M, Multi, Past Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Past Lydia Martin/Aiden, Past Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore, mostly - Freeform, past Lydia Martin/Malia Tate, thank god finally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 07:42:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12954531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scepticallyopenminded/pseuds/scepticallyopenminded
Summary: Lydia remembers the first time anyone told her they were in love with her.





	freedom is being alone (I fear liberation)

**Author's Note:**

> so the dude who gave me the lyrics said that today's was very important to him and to "TREAT IT WELL" and I was like "FUCK THAT'S SO MUCH PRESSURE" but then I wrote this and I'm happy with it, even if it doesn't necessarily go along with the lyric completely. 
> 
> from Vienna Teng's Between:
> 
> "Freedom is being alone/I fear liberation"
> 
> Have fun with some more Lydia-based fiction bc literally Lydia is in my top ten favorite characters of all time and is tied with Derek for my second favorite character from TW (behind Stiles ofc) so she's probs gonna pop up a few more times during this challenge I'm forever sad I haven't written more with her.
> 
> See end notes if you want to know more about the canonical character death before reading.

Lydia remembers the first time anyone told her they were in love with her.

Eighth grade. Jackson.

“I love you,” he’d said one day in the middle of the hallways, surrounded by hundreds of other thirteen-year-olds, after they’d been dating for just over five weeks.

She was young, but she wasn’t naïve. She didn’t think they were actually in love, knew they weren’t actually, because she hadn’t really talked to Jackson much before he’d asked her out. But she’d nonetheless she’d said it back, smile on her face and he’d taken her hand and walked to her to their next class.

She remembers the last time he’d told her that, too. Junior year, just after he’d gone away, over Skype.

“I’ll always love you,” he’d said, voice crackly. It had been four a.m. his time, eight p.m. hers. She’d understood it, then, and there were tears in her eyes and she just barely stopped herself from shedding them.

“I love you,” she’d replied. They were done, they really were, and she knew Jackson had no plans to ever return to Beacon Hills and she had no plans to go to London. But they were seventeen now and she knew what love was and that was thanks to Jackson. He wasn’t perfect, and she would never claim their relationship had been completely healthy, but she’d loved him and he’d loved her. You never really got over your first love, she knew that.

She remembers the second person to tell her he loved her, too. Aiden had been fun and while their relationship had mainly been based around sex, it’d never been a secret that some feelings were involved, too. She certainly hadn’t been expecting the whispered “I love you” against her neck late one night while they laid in her bed, but it wasn’t unwelcome. She hadn’t responded, anyway, just grasped his hand and squeezed in response.

It still felt like _she’d_ been the one stabbed in the chest when Aiden had been. They’d been broken up for some time by that time, but it still felt like hell, like she’d lost someone so, so important in her life. Regardless of the fact that their relationship went fast and hard, she’d never forget Aiden.

“I love you,” Malia had told her after their first kiss, Lydia’s senior year of college. It still amazed her today how resilient Malia was, had graduated only a year behind when she was supposed to graduate and had gotten into UCLA on a partial scholarship. She was smart, no matter how much she acted like she wasn’t. While they’d grown closer through the last years of high school, it was nothing like how close they were in LA, and it was during a New Year’s Eve party back in BH that Malia had kissed her. Lydia had eagerly kissed back, attracted to Malia and having been skipping from one one-night-stand to another for too many years and it felt good to let go with someone she knew well.

“Same,” she’d said back, too unsure about _those_ words and unwilling to say them to just anyone, but Malia had seemed content and just kissed her again. And Malia had been great, wonderful, a better girlfriend than Lydia had ever imagined, and they were good _together_ for a solid five months before they mutually decided they were better off as friends. Lydia does love Malia and always will, but it’s a different kind of love.

Lydia remembers the first time she’d fallen in with Derek and Stiles, after Isaac and Cora’s wedding. They’d all been high on the pure feelings of joy for their fellow packmates, their _family_ , and Lydia remembers clearly the look Stiles had given her after the three of them fell into the couch at Derek and Stiles’ apartment, Lydia crashing there because her apartment was on the other side of town and too far away and it was late. It had been a look of curious hunger, and one little nudge and word had led to another and another until Derek was kissing her and she didn’t even question it because everything felt _right_.

That didn’t stop the next morning, when she woke up in Derek and Stiles’ comically massive bed, her legs tangled with Stiles’ and Derek’s arm around her middle. But that didn’t stop her from feeling awkward, because was this just a _thing_ to them? But as she blinked awake she saw Derek smiling down at her with tenderness she’d only ever seen him express toward Stiles and Stiles had reached over to kiss her lightly and it had come out of her before she could even process her own thoughts.

“I love you,” she’d breathed, and before she could feel embarrassed about her words both Stiles and Derek were _grinning_ at her and at each other and replying in kind and _oh_.

She remembers clearly, very clearly, the last time she’d told them she loved them, because it was _that_ morning, as Derek trotted off to work shouting “Drive safe!” to Stiles and kissing Lydia goodbye with a soft “Love you” as she sent him off, sipping her coffee and sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop grading papers and she’d said “Have a good day, love you too,” and Stiles had trotted down the stairs not long after, overnight bag in hand for the drive down to LA for a meeting with his publisher and he’d kissed her too, her starting with a “Drive safe, call us tonight please,” him responding with a “Yeah, yeah, I will, love you lots,” and her ending with “I love you!” as he walked out the door, shutting it a bit too hard behind him like he was prone to do and she’d rolled her eyes and gone back to her papers.

There was a point, Lydia remembers too well, when love seemed ill-fated, like Fate was always waiting to pull the rug out from underneath her and let her know she was _alone_. Sometimes, she still feared that, even when she’d been with her fiancés for three years now and she was twenty-seven and everything seemed to be perfectly in place in her life. But those fears seemed more and more unsound the longer her life went on, and she smiled to herself as she read through one of her students’ theories on quadratic differentials as stability conditions, eyes skimming the page, quietly wishing both her loves a good day.

Life was okay.

**Author's Note:**

> The character death is Aiden, and it's mentioned mostly in passing within one paragraph.
> 
> Also, I haven't mentioned this lately so again please don't post my shit on goodreads or any sites like it. I discovered one of my fics on there some months ago and it still irks me so much every time I think about it and it frustrates me so much that I can't take it down. Ugh.
> 
> Anyway find me at [asocialfoxpaw](http://asocialfoxpaw.tumblr.com)
> 
> Also I know nothing about math or differential equations beyond what little I remember from Calculus and Trig so if that part makes no sense please let me know


End file.
